Friday, June 24, 2016

Today in framing

Pretty scary story there, Fair 'n' Balanced Network:A former top Clinton administration diplomat who used his political sway
to garner support for the Iran nuclear deal apparently was being
bankrolled the entire time by Boeing -- which is set to make billions
off a jet deal with Tehran now that sanctions have been lifted.

Campaign-season-wise, do you think the hed would have a different impact if it said "Reagan's ambassador to Israel got $$$ while pushing Iran deal"? Because Thomas Pickering's career kind of goes back a ways (he was Tricky's ambassador to Jordan after the October war, if you want to put it that way).

As a rule, I'm in favor of more disclosure rather than less, so it's hard to disagree a prioriwith this claim:“In Pickering’s case, he has a direct connection to Boeing, which I
think should be disclosed,” Neil Gordon, an investigator for the Project
on Government Oversight, told The Daily Beast. “I think it’s necessary for the public debate. It’s necessary for the
public to fully realize the participants’ financial interests. Some of
them might have a direct financial stake in a particular outcome.”

But I find myself unusually inclined to applaud Fox News for not ripping off this remarkably stupid graf from the Daily Beast as well:Gordon compared it to a controversy in 2013,
when many think tank scholars and military experts arguing for a U.S.
military presence in Syria didn’t disclose that they had financial ties
to defense companies that stood to benefit from the intervention. Media
outlets presented these commentators as independent, Gordon noted, when
they weren’t. And, he added, Pickering’s situation is similar.Actually, no. There's really not much similarity at all between (a) advocating an invasion of Syria because your Raytheon stock will go up when we start burning through the supply of cruise missiles and (b) advocating an agreement that pushes a bellicose regional autocracy a little farther away from the starting line for nuclear weapons. In the first case, we increase the risk of a stupid war that wastes American blood and treasure in a cause that is at best tangential to American interests. In the second case, we reduce the risk of a stupid war that ... seriously, ass-hat pundits who claim to be realists, how hard is this to figure out?

Fox, of course, has a chance to serve its new orange-haired master by running a CLINTON!!!!!!!!!!!! story. The Daily Beast gets a chance to lick between the toes of the national press, even if the national press in this case is Fox. Those who appreciate the fundamental tenets of the democratic peace -- that common membership in international organizations is a known conflict suppressor, for example -- will simply stare at the election results and call it a night.